In between
by Errant Ember
Summary: She started to wonder why he was drifting farther away from her. She only had 5 months to make a difference in their friendship. He started to wonder why he never noticed before.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Hey peoples! This story is going to sound boring, I know. This is actually my life story with different names and places. You can not read. I am actually very embarrassed. My school is having Writing proficiency soon and this is one of the prompts. Constructive criticism is accepted.

In between

They were somewhere between acquaintances and friends.

Mikan's father Yukihara had met Natsume's father Ioran back in Japan before they were born. Yukihara was working in a small computer software company. It was a dull, boring job but he did it too support his wife Yuka and their young daughter Mikan. He loved them both so much that he put up with his very annoying sister-in-law. His sister in law Rasika was so traditional. She wanted them to have a traditional Japanese wedding and be as strict as their parents whenever their daughter was disobedient.

However 3 months before his daughter second birthday he had a new partner. His name was Ioran he brightened up his dull job as they played pranks on random by passers after work. They both had the same dream to go to America and start a new life. They visited each others house every so often for a dinner. Their wives became best friends and their children were nearly the same age.

They signed up for the lottery. Random people were chosen for flights to California. After several failures they made it. They immediately packed up a small amount of belongings. They were reluctant to leave their hometown that they had never in their entire lives. Their parents crying and friends promising to correspond.

They lived in California in a community with people that had come from all over the world. They met several people that came from Japan and they became good friends. Natsume apparently was getting a sister, Aoi. Both families were very content with their move, but their living expenses were very expenses. Las Vegas, Nevada was known to have very cheap living expenses, a price that their small budgets could handle.

So when Natsume and Mikan were both at the age of 4 years they moved again to apartments in Vegas. They were amazed by the big, glassy hotels and casinos on the strip. The hot weather was comforting to them and they felt at home. Yukihara and Izumi worked at several places such as gas stations and gift shops.

Soon Yukihara moved to a 2 story house near the strip and very close to a good elementary school. Ioran also moved to a similar house but they were a 6 minute drive apart and so their children were zoned for different schools and they drifted farther and farther apart.


	2. Chapter 2

In between ch.2

A/N: Thanks to Ice Princess Alice and KumikoAliceFlames13 for reviewing.

I know I haven't updated in a while. I went to Utah and left my laptop at home. As much as I love my iPod, I hate touchscreen keyboards.

They grew up together. They were like inseparable best friends. They made funny faces and took pictures. Made mud pies and tried to eat them (A/N: not a good idea). They even made houses out of blankets and pillows pretending to live in them.

When they were both 13, Natsume got a little sister that his parents named Aoi and Mikan got a 2 year old brother named Akira and a 6 year old sister named Sakura.

In fifth grade her teacher made a call home to her parents telling them that Mikan was to advanced for the average level of Science. She suggested a private school or a magnet school. So she applied to the three magnet schools of her choice. Natsume applied as well to one of the same magnet schools she did. They both decided to go to an engineering magnet school.

But as they got older, he got into sports and spent less time with her since she was such an epic fail when it came to Basketball. She loved reading, books took her to places she had never seen or heard of. At her local library she had read all of the books that interested her and by the age of 8 she was at a high school level of reading. She didn't have much to read any more so in middle school she expanded her reading to international books and fell in love with Japanese manga.

Natsume started to get colder as this crazy girl named Luna once stalked him all the way to his house. She even made a fan club for him! Though he may not show it he loved his little sister Aoi. He was sometimes extremely overprotective of her. Making sure she rejected every male that asked her out.

However Mikan wasn't totally hopeless when it came to athletics. She took four years of after school lessons for swimming at a professional swimming team. After the fourth year her little brother was born and her mother couldn't drive her anymore. She started with heelys at the age of ten and then went to in-line roller blades to ice skating. In middle school she took orchestra class, summer camp, after school, and private lessons for the viola.

Natsume joined the basketball team at school and practiced everyday at his home with his sister. His mother wanted him to focus on his studies instead of sports and even threatened to pull him out of the team if he didn't bring his grades up.

Mikan had shoulder length brown hair in layers and was nearly the shortest in her class. In eighth grade she noticed that reading got harder for her as the words were kind of blurry. She asked Sumire what was wrong with her and she suggested trying glasses. Mikan was horrified. Glasses would make her look like a total dork. Her teeth were messed up enough, she knew that the dentist was going to get braces sooner or later. Thankfully she did not need braces but she did need glasses. Oddly enough they were the same power Natsume has (A/N: Yes my Natsume wears glasses).


	3. Chapter 3

**In between ch.3**

**First off I want to apologize for not uploading in a while. The luna in my life gets bitchier and I am basically making a decision that will impact the rest of my life. So sorry.**

**Thanks for the reviews! Very appreciated ^-^**

* * *

><p>It started with small, little, unnoticeable things. He stopped opening the door for her when they entered the school. Instead of walking to school together he always sped up or slowed down so that they were quite a distance apart. To a stranger it would like they didn't know each other. He stopped sitting next to her for lunch and breakfast. Those things were trivial the one that hurt the most was almost ignoring her very existence.<p>

Her first mistake was befriending Luna. Luna was so pretty and popular. How could Mikan possibly be friends with someone like that? Well this was how it went.

"Hey guys. Guess what! Today is my Birthday!"Said Luna

Why didn't you tell us before we could've got you something!

"Today's your birthday! No way my birthdays tomorrow!" Mikan exclaimed

All eyes turned to her. "Hey aren't you Natsume's friend?" some kid said. That caught Luna's attention almost instantly. "Ummm yeah that me I guess." Mikan wanted be known as herself and not justa as Natsume's friend. Luna smiled "Well happy early birthday." Oh well technically since I was born on the other side of the international dateline. I would be born today here. Mikan English please? Oh no, today's my birthday too. Luna smiled "Wow we have the same birthday."

After that they grew together. Lab partners to friends to best friends. Or that's what Mikan thought. Truth or dare? Mikan absolutely despised this game, she almost always picked truth and it was always along the lines of- "Do you like Natsume?" She never told anyone before of course, but she was naïve enough to think she was her friend. "Do you have the homework Jinno gave us I forgot mine." Or "I lost my History notes can I use yours?" Were things she was asked daily my Luna and her posse. Couldn't she see that they were all just using her?

"Yes." Luna got what she wanted. It took two months of acting like a sweet girl Mikan could be friends with. I never really did meet Natsume. Will you introduce me? Of course. That was her second mistake. Mikan caught Him at lunch and dragged a shy Luna over to him.

Natsume decided he liked Luna. She was a shy popular beauty, just his type. They became friends. Try-outs came around and they both made it. Luna got into Cheer and Natsume made the Basketball team. Mikan choose an elective of NJHS and student council. However because of this Natsume saw even more of Luna and was attracted to her like a bee would to honey. Mikan was aware, very aware. Luna told her that he was the older brother she never had. Mikan could see through clearer and clearer every day. Her true colors were showing. Locker room gossip told her that she was a a total slut and had left her old school because she was expelled for PDA. She defended Luna of course. Luna had her trust and loyalty.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: So according to my Traffic stats, I have been getting a visitor from somebody in my home country! If the Sri Lankan person can send my a review it would be much appreciated. I love talking to fellow Sri Lankans.

Thanks to Czeselle who encouraged me to keep uploading ^-^

It has been brought to my attention that I keep forgetting to Disclaim Gakuen Alice. So I hereby disclaim it.

* * *

><p>In between ch.4<p>

School ended and summer started. One of the hottest, record breaking summer yet. It was around 113 degrees in Las Vegas, for Natsume at least. Mikan had left America and went to Japan. Unfortunately it was even hotter there. She was visiting her relatives and family friends. "Jii-chan! I haven't seen you since forever!"

"What? No bone crunching hug?"

Mikan had her arms ready to hug, before her mom put Mikan's hands down.

Mikan, jii-chan isn't the same as you remember. He is older and weaker now. Mikan frowned things changed so fast, her cousins were being rude to her in jealousy. One of her cousins even teased her for not being able to fluently speaking Japanese. (A/N: They really did )

When Mikan arrived in Japan she had a pretty bad case of air sickness. She was tired from the long flight and couldn't eat dinners because of her sausage allergy. Her cousins thought she was acting like a spoiled brat. Her parents were busy handing out gifts and visiting school friends. The weather didn't make anything better.

They visited beautiful cities, gardens, and tourist attractions. Her favorite were the lavender fields in Hokkaido. She had never seen so many flowers in one place before and it was truly overwhelming.

Unknown to Mikan, Luna had met Natsume's parents and his little sister Aoi. "Well aren't you a little cutie!" Luna gushed.

How old is she? She asked Kaoru. "I have a mouth and a brain, I think I can answer that by myself. Aoi said. Luna's eyes narrowed she didn't like her attitude. She couldn't afford to look bad in front of natsume's parents. "why don't we look at some family albums? Unfortunately Natsume burned his embarrassing baby pictures but we have a lot of him as a toddler." Kaoru ran upstairs to get the albums while natsume and Luna were seated on the couch. When Kaoru cam back she had three large and dusty photo albums in her arms. Lets take a look shall we?

Luna grabbed the first album and flipped it open. She was greeted with a baby natsume attacking a baby Mikan.

"What the-, who is this?"Luna whispered

"Natsume and Mikan of course! They're best friends. Mikan is going to be here a couple times." Kaoru responded

That was an understatement. As Luna went through the album Mikan was in nearly every picture.

Tea parties and dress-up with Aoi.

Natsume flipping her skirt up to see her polka-dotted panties.

Natsume and Mikan making funny faces. Dressing up as wife and husband. Making houses out of blankets and pillows. Cooking the mud-pies. Racing roly polies.

She was everywhere! In every album and nearly every picture. Haunting her and filling her with guilt.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: I was thinking about giving up on this story but this author(Awful Nightmare) gave me the confidence to continue. Check out her story( A Victorian era love). Its great and this chapter is dedicated to her.

nightrain12345: I hope this chapter clears things up about luna, and since my story has to be related to Gakuen alice in some way I said that I was from Japan. I am actually from Sri Lanka.

* * *

><p>She knew what it felt like to have a childhood friend. His name was Mochu. When her parent divorced her father took her away from Mochu and left her with some distant relatives in America. She hadn't seen either of her parents in years. She pretended not to care about them, but she couldn't do the same for Mochu. She had tried to find him of course. Her relatives weren't poor( Luna's dad supplied them with money every month). Nothing would come up until last summer. Mochu was in New York on scholarship at a private school.<p>

Flashback:

She was dealing with mixed emotions. What should she tell him? "Hey Mochu I know its been a couple years but do you remember me?" or maybe "Mochu I haven't seen you in years!" The flight to New York was easy but walking up the stairs to his house wasn't as simple. She sighed, she had come this far, she couldn't give up when she was right in front of him.

After half an hour of fighting a war with her mixed emotions. The door opened. She froze was it him? She was sitting on the stairway. An old lady walked down very slowly. She let of a breath she didn't even know she was holding in. This was ridiculous! She was Luna Koizumi!

Gathering up fragments of courage, she knocked on the door.

"I'll get it, mom!"

The door opened to a 13 year old with brown hair and the same forest green eyes she hadn't seen in years. It was Mochu. She was filled with a strange mix of happiness and shock.

"Who are you? Didn't I tell you fan girls to get lost?" Mochu took her silence as fan girl gawking.

"Just look at yourself. Do you seriously think you have a chance with me?" He went inside and shut the door.

Luna was shocked.

He.

Didn't.

Know.

Her.

She numbly walked down the stairs and boarded a taxi back to the airport. Her dreams of hugs and "I missed you Luna's." gone. She pondered his words on the flight after crying in the taxi. How could he think that she was just a fan girl? She never liked dressing up because it felt uncomfortable. People stared at her and she felt somewhat insecure. She remember Mochu's words with bitterness. If feeling insecure would get her friends she could do it. If Mochu couldn't remember her she could find some one who would.

Because she didn't want anything to do with her father or his money, so she applied for a uniform wearing school. So she wouldn't be spending money on clothes.

What she saw in Mikan was naivety. She didn't know pain, anger, or worst of all what it felt like to be forgotten.


End file.
